Jim Rubens on Homeland Security

The surveillance state is not OK: limit the NSA

The surveillance state is not OK. Journalists have been digging through the millions of pages of NSA documents released by Edward Snowden. We now know that our own government is operating a data dragnet that makes the East German Stasi look like pokers.
NSA collects, stores and sifts through our phone calls, texts, emails, social media postings, cellphone locations, computer keystrokes, Internet searches, online gaming behavior and credit card purchases. To secretly track our keystrokes, last year
NSA paid hackers $25 million to hunt down security flaws in widely used software products such as Microsoft Office and Google's Chrome browser.

Our protection? The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court consisting of 11 judges. FISA court briefings,
hearings and rulings are made in secret, predicated on a body of secret case law, and largely unavailable for review by the public. Over its entire 33-year existence, the FISA court has granted 33,942 warrants and issued only 11 denials.

NSA infringes Constitution and causes citizen distrust

Rubens varied only slightly from the stump speech he has given at other Upper Valley events, remaining focused largely on the national debt and health care reform. He also continues to speak out against what he describes as the infringement of the
Constitution by the National Security Agency and a general "lack of trust in Washington."

Rubens paints himself as a pragmatist who can find solutions by reaching across the aisle. "I take tough issues and deliver them over the finish line," he said.

Eliminate unneeded defense spending; shrink military budget

Q: Do you support the statement, "Expand the military"?

A: I favor the US having the world's strongest, most technologically-advanced military. I support military intervention only where US national security is at stake,
Syria not being such a case. Given current and projected federal budget deficits, I oppose larger military budgets and favor elimination of all unneeded defense spending.

NSA gathering data on citizens is abusive & unconstitutional

[The administration] has publicly acknowledged that the National Security Agency collects and stores private communications data (excepting content) from Verizon and other carriers involving hundreds of millions of ordinary American citizens.
This has been ongoing since at least 2006. For the likely purpose of storing and mining this massive stream of past and realtime data, NSA is building a $2 billion data warehouse north of Provo, Utah, slated for completion later this year.
Indicating its immensity, this facility will consume 65 megawatts of power and 1.7 million gallons of cooling water per day.

We cannot trust that this data will not be abused, because NSA grants access by tens of
thousands of government employees and private contractors. Should I be elected to the U.S. Senate, I will speak out unabashedly against and work to defund and bar such constitutional breaches.

War for national security only; world's strongest military

If we've learned anything since the painful lessons of Vietnam, we do not honor our fighting men and women or improve America's stature by fighting wars we do not intend to win and lacking a coherent plan for victory. So what should we do [in Syria]?

The Constitution requires Congressional authorization to engage in the bombing war.

Arrest the murderous tyrant Assad and force him to stand trial before the Hague Tribunal for killing innocent civilians.

Syria does not pose a threat to
US national security. Encourage the regional powers, such as Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia to intervene consistent with their own national interests.

Dissuade Russia from continuing to arm Assad.

Transition the US to a military strategy focused
on national defense, to fighting wars only where US national security is at stake, and where we have a plan for outright victory. Such a stance will continue to require the US to have the world's strongest and most technologically advanced military.